


What I Would Break

by wintergrey



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Devotion, First Love, Friends to Enemies, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, fidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 22:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3912364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintergrey/pseuds/wintergrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik and Charles meet in their minds and revisit the past on the eve of Charles signing a peace treaty--making a terrible deal--with the human governments of the world. Erik is resolved to stop him by any means necessary, even reminding him of what they once had.</p>
<p>The prompt generator gave me two things and this was the result:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Anti-heroes (sympathetic villains; villains with principles; noble demons; enemies who keep their word)<br/>(Optional: A character you've never written before * (write for) 15 minutes )</p>
  <p>Sex outdoors/outside (in a field; in a rainstorm; with snow falling; on the beach; in a graveyard; in an alley)<br/>(Optional: slash * (write for) 15 minutes )</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	What I Would Break

The air smelled like green things and the threat of rain, the sky was the colour of iron. Grass and clover clung to Erik's calves as he waded through a field to the shelter of a tree so old it laboured under the weight of its own great canopy. When he leaned in its shadows, briefly, he was young again.

There was a time Erik came here without the rush of his escorts--a pair of black helicopters--passing over him like a pair of hunting raptors. A time when he arrived by means other than a great black car that now idled by the road in the distance, waiting for him. When he walked here loose and easy and hopeful and...and not alone.

Erik took off his helmet and ran a hand through his hair that time had turned a shade of grey only slightly brighter than the sky. He dropped the helmet between his feet as he sank down to sit with his back to the tree. If he could, he would turn back time to days when he was certain that--between him and his companion--he was the less moral man.

"You're angry." Charles spoke in his head as clearly as if he were right there.

"I'm weary, Charles." Life was simpler before this terrible war that had divided their people in ways his disagreements with Charles had never done.

When they'd come here together, barely out of their youth, the possibilities of life had spread out ahead of them wider and greener than the branches of the tree overhead. Now their choices narrowed to a single point on the horizon, a point of collision and reunion Erik would give anything to miss, no matter how much he wanted to see the Charles he'd loved again.

"I'm still myself," Charles said gently but they both knew the lie behind it.

"That were true, friend, you would be here with me. Not preparing our surrender to our enemies."

Erik let his head fall back against the rough bark and closed his eyes. The idyllic scene around him attempted to reassert itself in his mind--Charles' doing--but Erik rejected it. That left them standing, both standing, in a void marked only with a luminous blue grid, the inner workings of the machine they'd built. Their other place of union.

"I regret the necessity." Charles' expression was smooth. Emotionless. Where was the ferocious spirit that used to counter Erik's with barely bridled outrage and disdain?

"Regret?" Erik laughed at him. "Is that all you regret?"

"I admit, I regret not being able to be there with you, if it is to be the last time." Charles turned away from him. Even here, in the place between their minds, Charles couldn't look him in the eye.

"Don't do this, Charles. Come with me." How many times had Erik made that offer?

"I am attempting to limit casualties, Erik. Please understand." When Charles faced him again, there was a flash of fire in his blue eyes, a hint of the man Erik had loved.

"You limit casualties only because there are fewer of us than them." Erik's chest hurt. "We are not worth less."

"With our power also..." Also comes sacrifice. Erik wasn't going to listen. Instead, he grabbed Charles' mind with his own, using what he'd learned over the years to assert himself as Charles' resolve faltered.

"You have forgotten us," he said, hands tight on Charles' shoulders. He punctuated his words with a shake. "Betrayed us. Not only our people. Us. Don't you remember what could have been?"

"At the cost of blood in the streets?" Charles didn't pull away. He wanted an answer, Erik could feel him yearning to be convinced.

"At the cost of letting the world burn." Erik still believed it to his bones, even after losing almost everything he loved, after sending his own children out to war. "There is no freedom for anyone if there is anyone still in chains. This world is a wasteland for us already, a great vale of tears and terrors. Why should we not tear it to the ground, Charles?"

"I no longer remember how to dream of better than this terrible compromise," Charles' voice broke in Erik's mind and Erik could feel his vast will crumple. 

"Then remember the hope we used to share. I would not be here in our place if I had abandoned us." In the void, Erik pressed his forehead to Charles', willing them into the past together, to another grey and tender spring day under the tree.

They had been so young and fresh, Charles' hair pulled every way in the wind, his elegant hands carving shapes in the air as he argued. He was so passionate and so compassionate and so moral and so terribly wrong. Good men had little defence against a world that wanted them erased.

"You would make a servant of yourself." Erik could still feel the sharpness of his youthful disdain.

"Gladly, if it meant betterment for the world." Charles laughed at him so easily. "Why should those with gifts not serve?"

"One need not be a servant to serve." Erik stopped in the shadow of the tree as thunder rolled overhead. The first raindrops of a spring storm spattered the green leaves sheltering them. "If you insist on such a course, I will have no choice but to oppose you." He turned to see Charles regarding him with a mix of confusion and dismay.

"You mean that." Statement, not question. Charles knew his mind, Erik didn't ask him to blind himself out of courtesy.

"With everything in me, Charles. If your path takes you to the places you describe, selling us into the service of a world that despises us, I will fight you every step of the way." Erik surprised himself with how cold he felt inside, how resolved.

"That way lies disaster, Erik." Charles could be so stubborn and so good. "For us and for them."

"Then disaster it is." Erik shook his head. "I simply wanted to warn you."

"Erik, why?" Charles grabbed him by the front of his jacket. Erik didn't have an answer for him but a kiss that took the breath from both of them. Charles kissed him back, pulling the jacket from his shoulders, and Erik knew their course was set.

The storm came, a hard wind soaked them in spite of their shelter, but it hardly mattered. They were both bare and already drowning in each other. Charles was yielding and afraid at once, dragging Erik into him in every way in spite of his apprehensions, and Erik was unable to resist.

"I love you." Charles' fingers were knotted in Erik's wet hair. Charles could had said it between their minds but he said it aloud instead, raising his voice to be heard about the storm. "I refuse to hate you. Ever. Understand that."

"Nor I you." Erik captured Charles' hands and pinned them into the wet, fragrant clover. "Never doubt that I will do what I do because I love you--because I love you and not what I know will become of if you try to be the better man in this world." He kissed Charles then, to end the conversation in favour of cries of pleasure and surrender.

When it was over, they helped each other dress, awkwardly pulling wet clothes on over wet skin. The storm was breaking, cruel shafts of light pierced the grey peace that had held them until now. Charles' hands were shaking so Erik buttoned his shirt for him, tending to him one last time before letting him go.

Charles left him there under the tree, the same tree where Erik sat in the present day. Erik knew then that he couldn't follow and Charles would never let him lead. Then and now, his face was wet with tears.

"I have been faithful to you all my life," he said to Charles. "In my way. Say the word and I will come for you."

"Not at the expense of millions." Distantly, Erik had the impression of Charles transferring from his chair into a car. "We are only two old men now, Erik."

"You are worth millions." Erik put his face in his hands to stifle a sob. "I cannot let you do this, Charles. Even if it were only for you and not for the rest of us, I cannot. I cannot let you sell your soul."

"Do you think you can be here in time?" Charles' voice held laughter under his sadness. "Or will you break time itself to get to me?"

"Yes." Erik got to his feet, taking his helmet with him. The rain was falling now but it came short of reaching him through the aura of his power. "Time, the universe, everything. I am coming, Charles. Remember that it is because I love you."

Erik hesitated before putting the helmet on, foolishly, an opening wide enough for the knife of Charles' will to cut him down. Nothing. Erik settled the last piece of his armour into place. Between old friends, old loves, silence was as good as words.

Then come.


End file.
